The hosting of Miss World has returned to India after 28 years. The eyes of the world will be on India on March 9, as the finale of Miss World-2023 will be held this evening at Jio World Convention Center in Mumbai. Femina Miss India-2022 winner Sini Shetty is representing India on behalf of India. India hosted the competition in Bengaluru 27 years ago and it was not a very good experience for the organisers Amitabh Bachchan Corporation Limited (ABCL).Active in the world of cinema for 5 decades, Amitabh Bachchan is a big name in the world of cinema. Since the 70s, there have been many names and titles like Lambuji, Shahenshah, Big B and Mahanayak. But, this journey was not easy at all. After success through difficult struggles, there came a time when she had to go through the worst phase of her life and the reason for that was hosting Miss World.
Received proposal to host in India
In an interview with Veer Sanghvi, Amitabh had shared that he had received an offer from the company organising the show to host its Miss World pageant in India and he was nervous to say yes. Because we had only four months to organise the competition.He spoke to his team at his company ABCL before saying yes and did so 'out of caution'. But, what happened next was completely unimaginable. Announcement was made to organise Miss World contest in Bengaluru city, two types of movements started in Karnataka. On one hand, feminist women said that such beauty contests are an attempt to humiliate a large number of women. President of Mahila Jagran Sangathan R.Sasikala threatened that if we failed to stop Miss World, we would commit suicide. On the other hand, some people said that such a program would put the culture and civilisation of the society in danger. The protests became so heated that eventually the swimsuit competition, one of the many Miss World competitions, was held in Seychelles instead of Bengaluru.
Such a reaction was shocking because just two years before, Aishwarya Rai and Sushmita Sen had won the Miss World and Miss Universe titles respectively and India had welcomed them warmly. When Miss World got such a reaction from the fanatics in 1996, even Big B was surprised. Amitabh told that Miss India is being organised in India since 1947 and it has never received so much negativity.In a conversation with Veer Sanghvi, Amitabh had said that when you talk about backlash, you are referring to a small but vocal group that opposes the competition. We ran a survey before saying yes to consider the reaction of the public at large. That survey said that people had approved the competition. I still believe that overall Miss World is getting widespread public support or at least, the public is not against the pageant.So in this respect the survey was right. We did not consider that there would be a very vocal minority that would oppose Miss World at all costs.
Amitabh had said that this was an opportunity to show the world that India is capable of hosting a world-class event, which will be watched around the world. He had said that if we had said no to Miss World, it would have been interpreted to mean that India was saying that we do not have the capacity to do so. Amitabh Bachchan thought that he would get huge profits by organising an event like Miss World, but it did not happen.After organising Miss World, Bachchan got stuck in a debt of Rs 70 crore. The situation became such that even Big could not pay his dues. The bank sent him a notice to recover the money, after which Amitabh Bachchan had to mortgage his bungalow in Juhu to break the bank loan. Many cases against the company reached the court and Big B had to face lawsuits.